Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde

[katekintailbc]

Shades of Grey
by Jasper Fforde
(Audio)

I wish I could say I loved this book. I didn't hate it, but it just didn't grab me the way Fforde's Nursery Crimes stories did.

The world created was an interesting one. A culture and hierarchy based on color is not one I would ever have come up with myself, but Fforde makes it work, somehow. It's believable. It's also infused with plenty of humorous quintessential Fforde elements like Oz and the Last Rabbit. Once in a while, all the color codes and mentions of how color society worked bored me. I understood it; I didn't need it rehashed in every detail. The concepts weren't revealed in boring exposition, which I was glad about. But I didn't need some points hammered into me. I wanted to be absorbed into the culture more in a softer sort of way, I guess. If I'd been there, I'm sure I would have been a grey... maybe not even trusted enough to perform a chair census! heehee :-)

The main characters just didn't grab me the way I wanted them to. For a while, it was very 1984 or Fahrenheit 451, with the man swayed by the attractive rebellious woman, and together they buck the system and change the way those around them see the world. It was nice that he was able to see further in the spectrum than people assumed he did.

That being said, I did like the book. I just didn't like it as much as I expected to. I thought it would appeal to me considering that some people don't know nursery rhymes, some don't know Austen, but almost everyone knows colors!

Comments

One of the My Top 5 Books

[bookwyrmm.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to hear that you did not love this book. I devoured it and then so did my husband and we are both eagerly awaiting the next volume.
-Ricki (bookwyrmm from Swap-Bot)